Tuesday 10 October, 2000
Cattle Market Clones
A cloned copy of a prize-winning cow has recently been auctioned in the US before it is even in the womb. At The World Dairy Expo, Wisconsin a Minnesota group paid $82,000 for the yet to be conceived calf. Suzanne Mooney of BBC Science reports on this unique auction.
Auction
Lauduc Broker Mandy is a cow of outstanding pedigree. As a show cow she is two-time All-American and three time All-Canadian winner. As a prize winning dairy cow, Mandy is very valuable. Her owners paid $100,000 for her and had hoped to raise as much as $200,000 for her clone.
However at this year’s World Dairy Expo it was Mandy’s unborn calf which was causing a stir. This is the first time that a cloned animal has been sold to the general public at auction. The calf, which has a planned delivery date of December 2001, will be produced as a purely commercial venture, which breaks the current pattern of animal cloning.
Uses for cloning
More often cloning, or making an identical copy of an animal, is carried out by pharmaceutical companies. The animal clones have special genes inserted into their genetic material DNA that produce products scientists can use to treat diseases. Cows for example have been genetically manipulated to produce proteins, which can treat various blood disorders.
The applications and potential benefits of the cloning technology are varied. The addition of a gene can cause the animals to produce a special sort of milk, which can be useful in the treatment of humans. Currently many of the hormones, enzymes and proteins used in the treatment of human disease are derived from blood donations. It is not possible to create complex proteins in a laboratory environment. By introducing them into animals, vast quantities could become readily available and whilst breeding this race could occur naturally, the process of cloning animals would be much quicker and more efficient in controlling and meeting the demand.
Dr Mike Bishop is head of research at Infigen, a company producing cloned animals, he explains some of the further benefits:
‘We've cloned cows for the use of biofactories, for human pharmaceutical products produced in their milk such as fibrinogen, factor eight, calogin and others. The cloning process for pigs is important for the use of nuclear transfer technology to produce pigs whose genomes have been modified so they have organs that could be more compatible for whole organ transfer between the pigs and humans in the field called xenotransplants’.
| 'Agricloning opens up a whole new world of opportunities for today's cattle producers' | |
Agricultural farming improvements
As well as producing clones for the medical benefit of humans, Infigen are now cloning animals to improve agricultural farming. The aim is that farmer's can identify their prize dairy cows and then clone them to reproduce more prize winning cattle.
Dr Mike Bishop is convinced of Mandy and her subsequent offspring’s value. He comments:
‘Mandy is a very fantastic looking cow. She’s a model cow for the Holstein dairy breed. She’s a many times champion, both at the World Dairy Expo and other large dairy shows and she's a highly valuable cow.’
Similarly the owner of Mary and Carousel Farms, Ron Bader, shares Bishop’s conviction. He commented:
‘We are pleased to be able to lead the global dairy market by offering a genetic duplicate of this tremendous cow. Mandy has been very influential in our herd and we’re sure her genetics will have a great impact.’
Bull clones
Despite the researcher's and owners enthusiasm, Infigen have no intention of cloning the clones of Mandy. They anticipate that they will breed with other cows in the normal way.
However Infigen are currently working with a leading supplier in cattle genetics to clone select bulls, therefore ensuring adequate, quality semen supplies. The impact on the cattle market could be significant as Jesús Martínez, vice president of marketing for Infigen, has commented:
‘Genmark’s [a division of Infigen] agricloning opens up a whole new world of opportunities for today's cattle producers. Genmark cloning technology, along with our other reproductive services and genetic tests, will offer producers ways to become more efficient, productive and profitable.’
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| Nuclear transfer |
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In 1996 scientists created the first ever cloned mammal - Dolly the sheep. Dollly was cloned using a method of nuclear transfer. Her beginnings can be simplified in four steps:
1) Cells from the first sheep are starved of nutrients, so that they stop dividing.
2) The nucleus is removed from the cell of a second sheep, whilst ensuring that the rest of the cell's components are in good working order.
3) The two cells are joined and begin to reproduce as a single cell. The cells continue to divide and the embryo is placed in the womb of a third sheep.
4) The embryo continues to grow and is born as an identical twin to the sheep that originally donated the cell.
In 1997 Gene, ‘the world’s first cloned bovine from a non-embryo derived cell’, was born using a form of nuclear transfer.
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